ITZPublishing

Building your online business is ITZ business

...and so we offer a host of stellar tools and services to ensure your site's success.

Beginning with research that will transform your understanding of your readers and market, ITZ then helps you assess your organization's staffing and structure, provides sales training and advertiser seminars to convey the value proposition, sells with your team (or sells for you) and consults with you on all aspects of your online effort.

Services and tools (click on the Tools tab) can be employed separately, or -- as most clients choose -- in packages tailored specifically to your needs.

The 360 analysis

The ITZ 360 is the launchpad to a dynamic online initiative.

ITZ assesses your site and staff, then distills the information into an action plan tailored to your enterprise.

During the 360, ITZ will:

• Listen. Learn your strengths, identify your assets, and help your team develop a plan.
• Review audience composition, site traffic and home page structure.
• Discuss the value of online audience surveys.
• Identify sales goals, price points and revenue targets.
• Present ad-building and client presentation tools.
• Create a plan for building collateral.
• Develop an ad-tracking mechanism for advertisers.
• Introduce an advertiser-retention program.

ITZ leaves you with an analysis and plan that's clearly written and easy to follow.

Site and audience research

Current and accurate audience and market research is a foundation of exceptional online sales.

ITZ partners with the best research industry experts to deliver essential data. What this information will reveal to you includes..

• demographics and consumer behaviors of your visitors
• the kinds of content that engage them (and the kinds that don't)
• how often visitors come to your site compared to other sites
• yours and your competitors' market share

ITZ also provides analysis of paid-content strategies and their effect on revenues. And the ITZ staff assessment tool will help you identify weaknesses in their product or organizational knowledge and/or sales skills.

Organizational development

Here's our story in a nutshell...

ITZ has consulted for major media companies (Belo, McClatchy, Lee, Media News Group, Philly.com, Knight Ridder), independent newspapers, alternative newsweeklies, business and consumer magazines, trade publications and trade associations.

The underlying principles of our approach are always the same:

• Redefine your competitive space by changing the way your readers see your site
• Position your company so it leads in providing customer value
• Move ahead of your competition by offering superior business models
• Drive to be the market leader

Our blueprint for reaching these goals is fairly easy to describe:

• Understand the audience
• Research first, then develop a plan
• Define the strategy
• Refine the plan
• Align the organization
• Deliver the right tools
• Implement the plan

ITZ has clients that have hired us every quarter for the last three years. We call that an endorsement. Let us show you what their enthusiasm is all about.

Sales training

Training can be more effective with some show along with the tell. That's why we offer the ITZ Blitz.

The key to engaging your print sales people in online sales is providing them with a clear understanding of what they are selling and what it is worth. ITZ provides a compelling value proposition that your sales people can explain and your advertisers will understand.

This ITZ program:

• Creates the value proposition.
• Develops your inventory of high-impact ads on low clutter pages.
• Provides sales tools, including research-rich collateral.
• Incorporates rich-media ads and a system for monthly creative updates.
• Introduces an advertiser satisfaction and retention program.
• Provides sales tools, including sample ads, proposals and training in prospecting and appointment setting.
• Accompanies sales people on calls.

The ITZ Blitz is one of the most popular of our programs. That's because it not only delivers a heap of revenue in a short amount of time, but it leaves your team with the expertise to keep on delivering. And that's invaluable.

Advertiser seminars

There are two big challenges to selling online ads:

1. Clients are often unsure of the value they are buying.
2. Sales people are unsure of the value they are selling.

While clients wonder about how best to take advantage of the Internet and where to spend their money, sales reps can be uncertain about the relationship between ad formats, placement and pricing.

The ITZ seminar for advertisers and prospects is structured to address the questions of both groups — by walking your clients and sales people through the steps for determining the value of a website offers.

For any local business actively advertising online, or thinking of doing so, this program -- delivered by ITZ principals Greg Swanson and Dan Adams -- is a “must attend” session.

They will learn about:

• the power of online advertising
• what to expect from online advertising
• who is online
• the sites local people are visiting
• what they are looking for
• how to reach them
• the online ad formats that work
• what a successful site looks like
• the local businesses that are winning
  online market share, by category
• leaderboard, skyscraper and "big ad" formats
• sponsorships
• video
• search/listings
• search/keywords/SEO/SEM
• behavioral targeting
• geo-targeting
• email

The 1 1/2-hour session is followed by 15 minutes of q&a and appointment setting.

Call ITZ for more details: 503.241.3650.

ITZ speakers bureau

ITZ partners are passionate, experienced speakers, sought after for their understanding of digital media and the clarity of their presentations.

ITZ CEO Greg Swanson is among the best in the business.

With a deep store of online knowledge, engaging style and natural talent for teaching, Greg is a favorite presenter for the Newspaper Association of America, Inland Press Association, Kelsey, the International Newspaper Marketing Association, the American Press Institute, We Media, International Classified Media Association and the annual meetings of many publishing and technology companies. 

Greg brings a couple decades' online-media experience and a lifetime of passion to his speaking engagements.

Greg has trained hundreds of sales people in online selling, led hundreds of business owners to invest in Web advertising, conducted countless editorial and design seminars, and helped more than 200 media enterprises drive their online revenues to new levels.

Among recent topics covered by ITZ speakers...

• Micro-payments and paid content
• Social networking and user-generated content
• Online audience usage patterns and growth strategies
• Advertising formats, metrics and optimization
• Digital revenue strategies
• Emerging journalism-based businesses
• SEO, SEM, networks and your beleagured sales staff
• Classifieds survival manual
• Video advertising that works
• E-mail marketing you can measure

ITZ would love to speak at your event. Find us at 503-241-3650.

ITZ consults

ITZ clients who've employed research, blitzes and trainings often find it tremendously helpful to have an ongoing relationship so that they may tap into guidance and advice over a longer period of time.

ITZ consulting helps with a wide range of issues, including vendor assessment, process mapping, production tools, site design, staff requirements, SEO and SEM strategies, advertising networks, ad inventory management, e-mail marketing and paid content.

Clients often sign on for a year of consulting, including:

• Monthly check-in conference calls to review progress and get new insights and ideas.
• Emailed suggestions for new revenue opportunities and guidance on implementation.
• Recommendations on vendors, ad formats, content management systems, social networking, SEO, SEM, e-mail platforms and paid content options.
• Access by phone and email to ITZ consultants for answers and advice.
• Follow-up success monitoring.

Consulting is tailored to each client's needs.

ITZ client packages

Some of our clients purchase ITZ offerings a la carte. Most, however, put together a package of services and tools that best compliment their organizational and site needs.

A few popular packages include..

• The 360 analysis + sales training
• The 360 analysis + sales training + advertiser seminars
• The 360 analysis + sales training + advertiser seminars + ITZ Blitz
• ITZ Short Course:
  
  • In this 1 1/2-day program, nationally acclaimed speaker, online expert and sales trainer Greg Swanson (aka ITZ' CEO) addresses your clients, prospects and sales staff, delivering each tools to maximize their success.
• ITZ Full Course:
  • Greg Swanson and the ITZ team conduct a 360 analysis and site research, then return to your market to lead two advertiser seminars and a week of sales training, including "four-legged" calls.

API/ITZBelden Reports

The American Press Institute, ITZ Publishing and Belden Interactive are pleased to offer publishers and media executives a new API Insight Report…

PAID ACCESS MODELS: PRACTICES AND PROFILES   

Across the country, news-media publishers are thinking about paid content — charging their online readers fees to access some or all content. And many publishers industry-wide are taking action, implementing paid-access models at their enterprises.

The challenge in all this experimentation is guessing at the unknowns:

- What is the right pricing structure?
- How much content should be free and how much paid?
-What about leaving all content free and charging for services?
- How will our customers react to our shift to paid access?
- Will paid access affect our print circulation?
- Which media sites are having success with charging for content?

The API-ITZBelden Paid Access Models: Practice and Profiles report was produced to help answer those questions and put good information in publishers’ hands as they deliberate their next moves. The report aggregates the most data, case studies and content on paid access currently available anywhere.

Paid Access Models: Practices and Profiles draws on these sources:

•    Executive Survey data from the September 2009 API-ITZBelden Industry Survey
•    Proprietary Belden Interactive local market studies on paid access
•    Executive interviews conducted by ITZBelden and Alisa Cromer of NewMediaHub.com
•    Data analysis by Mather Economics
•    Client-submitted information on current paid content practices

In the 40-page report, ITZBelden presents the case studies of 14 current paid access ventures. The report looks at retail pricing models and analyzes information on uptake for e-editions and HTML sites in more than 50 markets. It also provides input from consumers on paid content, with survey responses to pricing in selected markets.

Paid Access Models: Practices and Profiles is available for $500 (per single enterprise). A PowerPoint presentation of key data and findings is included.

ITZBelden also offers a webinar explaining the report in depth for $500.

For more information and to purchase the Paid Access Models: Practices and Profiles report and webinar, contact Kathy Guilfoyle at ITZ Publishing at 503-241-3650, kathy@itzpublishing.com, or

order online.

Special price: Registered participants of the upcoming API seminar, “15 Paths to Paid Online Content,” (Feb. 11-12) may purchase the report for $300.

This Insight Report and seminar are part of API’s Revenue 3.0 Portfolio series. For information, contact Mary Peskin at mpeskin@americanpressinstitute.org or 703-715-3336.